The Sunday Seven: Unemployment

Greetings from a Starbucks in Charlottesville, Virginia, where yesterday I saw my first college basketball game: UVA Wahoos vs. Virginia Tech Hokies. UVA won. I’ve never seen such a united display of school spirit, even though it seemed my classmates had plenty of it. I just didn’t. I also never paid attention nor participated in any sporting events aside from badminton. Though I did go to one football game at Berkeley (vs. Oregon) and sat on the wrong side. In a sea of folks dressed in forest green I said very loudly, “What color are we?” At UVA, I counted a handful of Asian faces in what felt like a field of very attractive blondes and caramels and felt more than a little old at the game, where students a decade younger hollered and jumped and cheered and clapped with boundless energy. I fell asleep twice, finding the roar of school spirit to be surprisingly sedative. In the evening, we entered popular college bars while it was still early and easy to get a table, and at the end of the night when we headed back to the hotel, saw throngs of rowdy undergrads lining up outside to enter the same places, most not wearing very much, warmed by beer and youth.

This morning Tom gave me a walking tour of the chilly campus – the grounds, he called it – which was covered in snow and would soon turn icy as it rained later in the day.

It was the systems engineer tour, meaning we saw more of the engineering buildings, because that’s what Tom studied, though he knew much more about the UVA campus and the school itself than I do about either Berkeley or Columbia. I made a note to do some research on my alma maters – if for nothing else than bragging rights: according to this article in The Atlantic, UVA is the best bang for your college tuition buck. Perhaps I should feel like this about Berkeley, but I definitely won’t about Columbia…but maybe it’s too early to say. I am, after all, still unemployed.

Ed Helms (in blue) is giving the Valediction this May at UVA.

So this Sunday’s Seven: the Unemployment Edition.

1. For those looking for a job, some job-hunting advice from one of my favorite blogs, Cupcakes and Cashmere. The woman has a very Marissa Mayer-like approach, but I could probably use the Excel practice.

However, I’m the type to worry about the future rather than focus on first steps so in case the job hunt leads nowhere, I came across two interesting alternatives, both of which would horrify my parents.

3. Or being a Professional Dumpster Diver, which is surprisingly lucrative if you dive the right dumpslike this guy did. He made over $100K.I seriously considered doing this when I worked at Costco. Luckily I went to college and became an English major instead.

4-5. Two sides of a touchy subject I’ll no doubt return to again: on being a writer married or dating someone who makes more money. While I do believe in the whole “independent woman” thing I’m also real about…my own life. As of now (and pretty much since forever) my father sponsors me, not my boyfriend, who, though generous, is very excited for me to get a job so I can contribute to the sponsorship of our relationship.

7. But as of now,this graph from the NYTimes kind of explains how I, the unemployed, spend my days in relation to other American men and women. Except I spend more time socializing and traveling and less time watching TV.

That’s all folks! Wish me callbacks and interviews and just one good offer for the coming weeks and hopefully by May I’ll have reason to post a Sunday Seven: Gainfully Employed Edition!